It's an obituary, not a biography.The offensive part is "The article went on to suggest that it took two men to create an adhesive stationery but only one woman to figure out how to keep satellites in place."Can we praise a women without taking petty jabs at men? Screw you Post-It Note guys, a woman did rocket science. Classy.

Besides the saccharine folksiness, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with starting the article like that. But it shows the NYT is tone deaf to decades of women fighting to get more representation in STEM fields.

Lumpmoose:But it shows the NYT is tone deaf to decades of women fighting to get more representation in STEM fields.

Although they do include these bits:It was a distinction she earned in the face of obstacles, beginning when the University of Manitoba in Canada refused to let her major in engineering because there were no accommodations for women at an outdoor engineering camp, which students were required to attend.

"You just have to be cheerful about it and not get upset when you get insulted," she once said.

... Part of Mrs. Brill's rationale for going into rocket engineering was that virtually no other women were doing so. "I reckoned they would not invent rules to discriminate against one person," she said in a 1990 interview.

Theaetetus:Lumpmoose: But it shows the NYT is tone deaf to decades of women fighting to get more representation in STEM fields.

Although they do include these bits:It was a distinction she earned in the face of obstacles, beginning when the University of Manitoba in Canada refused to let her major in engineering because there were no accommodations for women at an outdoor engineering camp, which students were required to attend.

"You just have to be cheerful about it and not get upset when you get insulted," she once said.

... Part of Mrs. Brill's rationale for going into rocket engineering was that virtually no other women were doing so. "I reckoned they would not invent rules to discriminate against one person," she said in a 1990 interview.

Yes, but I heard she went to a conference once and someone made a joke about Two stage rockets and she didn't broadcast this sexist image to the BBS boards or anything. Obviously a terrible woman who let men walk all over her. How dare she.

Really, her signature dish is beef stroganoff? Come on, male scientists and engineers would be ashamed to admit we even cook that garbage let alone it being our best dish. A male engineer would be cooking cool stuff like sushi or New England clam chowder or tiramisou. Women still have a long way to go.

She was a brilliant rocket scientist who followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. "The world's best mom," her son Matthew said.

They made it WORSE with this change. Now it makes no sense at all and puts her homemaking skills on equal billing with her scientific achievements.

The original was obviously meant to show how, at a time when things were just starting to change for women, she was at the forefront. To outside appearances, her life path would seem standard in many ways with home and family, but the real story of her life was her innovative work.

The people who criticized it really don't see that? They really think the writer wanted to highlight her home and family achievements and diminish the others?

I'm not a scientist, nor am I a mother [yet] but I sure hope that I get as much respect for my cooking and homemaking as I get from my work in sales. I take my laundry, cooking, dog-care, cleaning, baking and general domestication very seriously. Yeah... I seriously doubt my sales work (not Mary Kay or Scentsy) will be noteworthy... I'll be glad to recognized as a good wife, homemaker at the same time as being a working woman.

ImpatientlyUnsympathetic:I'm not a scientist, nor am I a mother [yet] but I sure hope that I get as much respect for my cooking and homemaking as I get from my work in sales. I take my laundry, cooking, dog-care, cleaning, baking and general domestication very seriously. Yeah... I seriously doubt my sales work (not Mary Kay or Scentsy) will be noteworthy... I'll be glad to recognized as a good wife, homemaker at the same time as being a working woman.

One may hope to be remembered by those close to you however you like, but nobody gets an obituary in the NYT for being a wonderful parent, much less keeping house well. She got an obituary for her work as a scientist.

Skirl Hutsenreiter:ImpatientlyUnsympathetic: I'm not a scientist, nor am I a mother [yet] but I sure hope that I get as much respect for my cooking and homemaking as I get from my work in sales. I take my laundry, cooking, dog-care, cleaning, baking and general domestication very seriously. Yeah... I seriously doubt my sales work (not Mary Kay or Scentsy) will be noteworthy... I'll be glad to recognized as a good wife, homemaker at the same time as being a working woman.

One may hope to be remembered by those close to you however you like, but nobody gets an obituary in the NYT for being a wonderful parent, much less keeping house well. She got an obituary for her work as a scientist.

If I had an NYT Obit, I would actually like if it said my food was as good as my work. I think it would be nice if we could stop acting like its an affront to feminism to be good at traditional homemaker skills at the same time as we compete with men.

Yeah I'm with you on this one the edits made the whole thing a mess and I don't really see what was wrong with the first one. It's not like they made a joke of it, hell for all we knew she was damn proud of her beef stroganoff. It's not like they downplayed her engineering successes either. They just made a strong case for a woman who had success both professionally and privately. That's a pretty damn big accomplishment for anybody and it should be celebrated.

ImpatientlyUnsympathetic:Skirl Hutsenreiter: ImpatientlyUnsympathetic: I'm not a scientist, nor am I a mother [yet] but I sure hope that I get as much respect for my cooking and homemaking as I get from my work in sales. I take my laundry, cooking, dog-care, cleaning, baking and general domestication very seriously. Yeah... I seriously doubt my sales work (not Mary Kay or Scentsy) will be noteworthy... I'll be glad to recognized as a good wife, homemaker at the same time as being a working woman.

One may hope to be remembered by those close to you however you like, but nobody gets an obituary in the NYT for being a wonderful parent, much less keeping house well. She got an obituary for her work as a scientist.

If I had an NYT Obit, I would actually like if it said my food was as good as my work. I think it would be nice if we could stop acting like its an affront to feminism to be good at traditional homemaker skills at the same time as we compete with men.

I don't think we're acting like it's an affront to feminism to be good at those things. But it is strange to emphasize them, considering obituaries for male scientists don't usually include anything about how great they were are keeping the lawn mown, or repairing the family car, or any other traditional male household roles.